Controversy Dogs Bradley, Even in Japan : Sister city: Mayor bestows Walk of Fame replica. But Japanese reporters question him about shoplifting incident involving local official.

Ernest Borgnine is not big here. Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Taylor? Yes, of course. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis? Maybe.

Those conclusions emerged from a survey of about a dozen Nagoyans who passed through their city’s central park on Friday afternoon as a replica of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame was unveiled.

A gift from the city of Los Angeles and its port, the Nagoya Walk contains 25 stars engraved with the names of 25 major entertainers--Borgnine included--who also are memorialized in Hollywood’s own version.

Mayor Tom Bradley and a delegation from the port of Los Angeles traveled to Nagoya for the ceremony Friday and were greeted with great fanfare. A marching band struck up the “Star Spangled Banner” and a bouquet of helium-filled balloons was set free to disperse above the treetops.

But an uncomfortable undercurrent marked the visit, as reporters for local newspapers and television stations attempted to question Bradley about his role in an incident last month involving the then-president of Nagoya’s city assembly.

Yukio Umemura, who has since resigned, has been charged with shoplifting $450 worth of merchandise from a duty-free shop at Los Angeles International Airport. Umemura was released without being charged April 14 after police were contacted by Bradley’s office.

Umemura was permitted to return to Japan, but last week was charged with a misdemeanor stemming from the incident.

Disclosure of the matter has caused a sensation in Nagoya and prompted Umemura, 57, to resign after more than 20 years on the council.

Umemura, who has withdrawn from the public eye, has said that he has “lost everything,” according to the Asahi Shimbun, a Nagoya newspaper. He told a reporter he was physically ill at the time of the incident and remembers little about it, the newspaper said. The reporters learned little Friday from Bradley, who refused to comment on the matter. Bradley has said that his office did not interfere in the case.

A woman who answered the telephone at Umemura’s home Friday said he was not there and that she did not know when he might return.

Nagoya’s mayor, Takeyoshi Nishio, on Friday called the matter “a terrible incident” and said, “I hope this won’t change the relationship between our city and Los Angeles.” For 30 years, Nagoya and Los Angeles have been sister cities, part of a program to promote cultural good will around the world. Los Angeles has 16 other sister-city relationships, but the one with Nagoya is the oldest.

A munitions and aircraft manufacturing center during World War II, Nagoya was virtually leveled by American bombers. After the war the city underwent a remarkable regeneration and is once again an industrial center with a population of 2.2 million. The city’s new Walk of Fame was placed in Hisaya Odori Park’s Los Angeles Square in the center of the downtown area. The sidewalk containing the stars borders quiet fountains and waterfalls.

Nagoya officials came up with the idea for a Walk of Fame replica and suggested it to Bradley, who pursued the idea, officials said. But there is some confusion about who actually selected the celebrities on whose names Nagoyans will tread.

Los Angeles officials say Nagoya chose the celebrities from a list supplied by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Nishio said Friday he thought Los Angeles had chosen the names. He conceded that a few are not exactly household names in his city.

Among the 25 celebrities, Borgnine, star of a fair number of World War II movies as well as television’s “McHale’s Navy” series, seemed to fare the worst in the informal poll Friday. None of those surveyed had heard of the 1955 Academy Award winner, nor could they pronounce his name.

Nobuko Uchikawa, head of the city’s women’s league, studied a list of the names and reported that she recognized Audrey Hepburn and Charles Bronson; Borgnine and Anne Bancroft did not ring a bell.

Three teen-age girls nodded enthusiastically at the name “Elizabeth Taylor” and said they were quite sure they recognized Shirley MacLaine, although they could not say exactly who she was.

The square occupied by “Dean Martin” was carefully scrutinized by two men passing through the park. Unable to make sense of the English characters straight on, they changed angles and tried to read the name “nitraM naeD,” to no avail.

To the apparent delight of the crowd, Bradley, Mayor Nishio and Johnny Grant, chairman of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, strolled down the walkway wearing Stetsons. Meanwhile the Nagoya Fire Department marching band struck up a few choruses of “Zip-a-dee-do-dah.”

Walks of fame have become a kind of cottage industry for Grant, who repeatedly was described Friday by the Japanese hosts as the mayor of Hollywood, a misimpression no one bothered to correct.

Grant recently dedicated a Walk of Fame in Rotterdam and said Friday he was heading off to do the same for a town in Florida.

“That name Hollywood!” Grant said. “I tell you, anywhere else it’s magic--except Hollywood.”